Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Clarification

I should make something clear for people to have a better understanding of me.

(a) I am suicidal

(b) I am depressed

For most people (a) follows on from (b) as they increasingly see no solution to the situation that is causing (b).

However, for me (a) and (b) are completely separate. (a) is a situation that I have been in for as long as I can remember, the reasons are long, complex and to be quite frank are not for public consumption (past experience has taught me that if I reveal these reasons to anyone they are inevitably turned around and used against me, which can cause a period of (b)).

(b) is generally caused by something situational such as my husband having an affair with a 19 year old, and my line manager having the attitude that I cannot do my job.

Sometimes (b) increases my motivation to act on (a) but largely the fear of failure and it's consequenses are the only thing that prevents me from actioning those thoughts.

I'm the only person I know who despite being as happy as a songbird on the day of my wedding was still wishing in the morning that I was dead and was berating myself for not having the courage to do anything to end my life when I went to bed. My desire to die is long standing, and has been rationally thought out and despite the improvement in my mood the "suicidal ideation" was at a constant level. (One of the nurses at the hospital said that she had never met anyone like me as most people are really grateful that the medical teams had intervened, whereas I was disappointed and indignant at the intervention, and that although she did not agree with my argument in favour of being allowed to die, she agreed that it was arrived at by a process of rational thought and not as a emotional response.)